On 10/10/06, Tracy Harms <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Thank you for the comments and suggestions regarding my prior post, Roy.
Truth is: no product out there that has the value and facility of J
(IMOMHO)
relative to math or programming elegantly by near reflex:
once the flow of J is adsorbed into the cognitive processes.
...somewhat similar to APL, as I recollect...
In reply to your enhancement suggestion, HTML is not designed to create
panels that correspond to physical displays. (The HTML-based J
Hmmm. Weak. Not correct. CSS definitely does; older HTML can.
I find it difficult to believe based on variable layout being capable on
HTML
as of v2. Much less later versions. Somehow we managed to fit display and
font sizes even n Ye Olden Character Terminale Dayes..
documentation is used on handhelds, for instance.) So long as we're
dealing with web pages, I doubt that the changes you suggest would be
worth attempting.
Small to make.
Older methodology not requiring
page size analysis by HTML formatting/formatter:
Set the panel size according to the most common factor.
As is already the case for a large fraction of the panels.
Secondary fallback: Explicit panel size setting,
then reducing to the size of your display screen.
We used to do this in the much, much older termcap/terminfo era.
Not difficult, just somewhat tedious to flush out.
Somehow it strikes me that it would still be present in HTML.
It may be worthwhile to write a small app to display the dictionary and
other documentation in the paginated manner you desire. Navigation
Why bother unless incorporated? A set of macros does most of it;
for the Firefox environment I live in.
I just noted having it explicitly present makes the environment flow a bit
faster.
A tad faster for the novice and flash reader.
Home/tab/enter gets the next page at any rate: just CPU inefficient.
buttons would have consistent placement in the window, and they would
have keyboard equivalents. Optimally it would present a resizable
window and put only enough text in the current display to fit without
scrolling. (There are a variety of applications already created that
obtain book-style formatting.)
Online book style formatting? That's the key point.
If there are already, public domain freebies, it would seem to be you
are suggesting
it would be trivial for someone as advanced as a member of the J development
team to do it
... and encorporate and support it.
And if not, then perhaps not quite the solution as you propose it to be.
Such a project does not strike me as suitable for the J development
team, but it may be suitable for somebody.
Short sighted , me thinks.
Still and beyond, you seem to have missed a seminal kvetch-ion:
Did I miss the dict/doc page in the dict./doc on the dict/doc interface
that _is_ present: describing tab/enter interactions, etc.
exploratory discovery is nice; but probably a tad sloppy mathematically
speaking:
I currently reside in a Extended Stay Hotel; Studio Plus; which in turn has
a telephone system
that has voicemail. And like most of them that have voicemail, you can pick
up your messages
both in the room, and outside of it by dialing in.
However, no one at Studio Plus seems to be able to state how to do this.
Which in turn is trivial, once you find the way to do it
(an exercise I will leave for the reader: how to discover ti, and then
discovering it,
when there is no user manual or no reference to the process in the user
manual).
However, NOT so trivial is to solve the requirement that MUST be handled
before the system
will allow message pick up from OUTside the room:
Setting the mailbox password.
Another item that no one at Studio Plus seems to be able to tell me how to
do.
Which appears to be a particular sequence which is also "self evident" once
found.
though it may take a while to find it.
Something on the order of about N * 10,000 trials worth of finding.
Similar comments for "discovering" "features" of the J environment or
language:
though the semantics of the internal side of the language seem well
documented.
Which is why I recommend(ed) all those special hidden corners being
explicitly
documented...
unless I missed the dict/doc page: which in turn I asked ...
More likely, the dict/doc has a bi of fluff to it or in it because
members of the J development team
find it much more interesting to concentrate
on things other than documentation
and have simply adopted the milieu of most modern IS/IT microsofty
style experts:
...ignoring it ... and justifying it while not justifying it:
"almost good enough" (see Yourdon for a definition about 15
years old in public)
programming/design/implementation.
Yours to choose: a marketplace to lose.
Resources are scarce, granted: sometimes so are sales.
Cheers, best wishes:
at least I got a more substantial response this time (... four years
ongoing ...)
Tracy Harms
Roy A. Crabtree wrote:
________________________________________________________________________
___
Enhancement suggestion:
Dictionary/documentation: Fourth or fifth submission:
0) Perhaps rewrite the dict/doc to fit on single panels.
a) Post the links at standard geographical points in all four corners,
as
well as just under the text end.
...
----------------------------------------------------------------------
For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
--
--
Roy A. Crabtree
UNC '76 gaa.lifer#11086
Room 209/207 Studio Plus
123 East McCullough Drive
Charlotte,7/209NC 28262-3306
336-340-1304 (office/home/cell/vmail)
704-510-0108x7489/7404 (voicemail residence)
[When you hear/read/see/feel what a yehudi plays/writes/sculpts/holds]
[(n)either violinist {Menuhin} (n)or writer {"The Yehudi Principle"} (n)or
molder (n)or older]
[you must strive/think/look/sense all of it, or you will miss the meanings
of it all]
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.authorsden.com/royacrabtree
http://skyscraper.fortunecity.com/activex/720/resume/full.doc
--
(c) RAC/IP, ARE,PRO,PAST
(Copyright) Roy Andrew Crabtree/In Perpetuity
All Rights/Reserved Explicitly
Public Reuse Only
Profits Always Safe Traded
----------------------------------------------------------------------
For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
